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On the angst of American journalists (2019)

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Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#41

Post by chaps »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #21
whatshisface wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all right for the people who are trying to make money but what about us the public who is suffering from a lack of journalism?

Is the public suffering from a lack of journalism? I'm not sure I can identify any kind of journalistic output that's harder for the average person to find in 2019 (or 2022) than it was in 1980. I wouldn't deny that there are real problems in the new model of journalism, in particular the substantially increased incentives for bias, but I don't think a lack of journalism to read is one of them.

What? This is a stupendously bleak vision of journalism. Are you saying that there should be no new journalism because there's no benefit? If you're sourcing your news from national news, try looking for investigative journalism at the local level.

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#42

Post by Broken_Hippo »

GravitasFailure wrote: post #28
caslon wrote: post #11

Does this seem suspect to anyone else? It's hard to believe an author trying to instill in you the idea that everything is fine, actually, when stuff is pretty obviously not actually fine. My neighbors are not well off. I am not well off. The people I know are mostly below or hovering around the federal poverty guideline. Far from making great sums, and it's been this way for a long time. Are we sure the author isn't…

The article is from 2019 and things were in pretty good shape then, though I do think the author's broader point about the concerns of journalists not really aligning with the concerns of everyone else does still hold true.

The article is from 2019 and things were in pretty good shape then...

Were they, though? I mean, things have gotten worse since then - but that doesn't mean we were doing well then. Simply that things got worse.

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#43

Post by Broken_Hippo »

barry-cotter wrote: post #12
caslon wrote: post #11

Does this seem suspect to anyone else? It's hard to believe an author trying to instill in you the idea that everything is fine, actually, when stuff is pretty obviously not actually fine. My neighbors are not well off. I am not well off. The people I know are mostly below or hovering around the federal poverty guideline. Far from making great sums, and it's been this way for a long time. Are we sure the author isn't…

> My neighbors are not well off. I am not well off. The people I know are mostly below or hovering around the federal poverty guideline. Far from making great sums, and it's been this way for a long time. Perhaps that is true of you and your neighbors but US unemployment is at a low not seen in over a decade. That’s what the Great Resignation is about. The problem that is likely to wallop the Democrats is inflation,…

Perhaps that is true of you and your neighbors but US unemployment is at a low not seen in over a decade

Employment doesn't give you a snapshot of how well things are doing, though. If you can't get a job that pays your rent, things aren't doing well even if you have low unemployment. I'll also mention that part of the low unemployment isn't because things are doing well, but because folks have died, we've had a pandemic, and a number of folks have dropped out of the workforce because of things like child care, remote schooling, and retirement (pushed forward by the pandemic).

Employment doesn't mean things are going at least OK.

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#44

Post by Animats »

caslon wrote: post #11

Does this seem suspect to anyone else? It's hard to believe an author trying to instill in you the idea that everything is fine, actually, when stuff is pretty obviously not actually fine. My neighbors are not well off. I am not well off. The people I know are mostly below or hovering around the federal poverty guideline. Far from making great sums, and it's been this way for a long time. Are we sure the author isn't…

> Does this seem suspect to anyone else?

Yes. Things are not fine.

The trouble with journalism is that there's too much punditry and too little reporting. Newspapers used to have large staffs of "beat reporters", who went out, gathered news, and sent it in. Today, most "news" begins as a press release. Check cnn.com. Everything above the fold today started as a press release or statement from someone, or is an opinion piece. Fox News is worse.

Collecting local news is now more the job of local TV stations, because they need video.

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#45

Post by ravel-bar-foo »

caslon wrote: post #11

Does this seem suspect to anyone else? It's hard to believe an author trying to instill in you the idea that everything is fine, actually, when stuff is pretty obviously not actually fine. My neighbors are not well off. I am not well off. The people I know are mostly below or hovering around the federal poverty guideline. Far from making great sums, and it's been this way for a long time. Are we sure the author isn't…

Back in 2019 when this was written, the US was economically doing well. Unemployment was at a 15-year minimum (1), net compensation was increasing for the middle/lower classes at the fastest rate in 20 years (2), and productivity was up. The economic crash started in Jan/Feb 2020 upon Covid worries, and then just kept on going with supply and demand shocks.

(1) https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

(2) https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/central.html

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#46

Post by herendin »

Animats wrote: post #44
caslon wrote: post #11

Does this seem suspect to anyone else? It's hard to believe an author trying to instill in you the idea that everything is fine, actually, when stuff is pretty obviously not actually fine. My neighbors are not well off. I am not well off. The people I know are mostly below or hovering around the federal poverty guideline. Far from making great sums, and it's been this way for a long time. Are we sure the author isn't…

> Does this seem suspect to anyone else? Yes. Things are not fine. The trouble with journalism is that there's too much punditry and too little reporting. Newspapers used to have large staffs of "beat reporters", who went out, gathered news, and sent it in. Today, most "news" begins as a press release. Check cnn.com. Everything above the fold today started as a press release or statement from someone, or is an opinio…

>The trouble with journalism is that there's too much punditry and too little reporting.

That seems more like a symptom than a disease. Punditry is cheap, good journalism is very expensive.

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#47

Post by idlehand »

refurb wrote: post #25

Outrage sells. The National Enquirer's entire business model has used this for the past 50+ years. The big difference is that the major news centers have copied that model and the author's thesis that it's a response to the move online makes sense. But there is something about online discourse that attracts extreme opinions like mice to cheese. This really dawned on me when I checked out the subreddit r/decaf for peo…

That's the kind of opinion you get in a break room at work when someone asks why you're not chugging your usual fifth cup by noon. For people to look up an online community specifically about something, they'd have to be a bit more interested in it than the average person.

That's something I miss about the forums of old: the off topic sections were generally just regular users commenting on whatever thread was at the top. It was a bit like a break room and could even form into communities.

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#48

Post by caslon »

paulpauper wrote: post #32
caslon wrote: post #11

Does this seem suspect to anyone else? It's hard to believe an author trying to instill in you the idea that everything is fine, actually, when stuff is pretty obviously not actually fine. My neighbors are not well off. I am not well off. The people I know are mostly below or hovering around the federal poverty guideline. Far from making great sums, and it's been this way for a long time. Are we sure the author isn't…

How would you know. did you ring the doorbell and as "hey, are you guys well off?" What does it mean to be well off anyway? Sometimes people who save a lot of money appear poorer than they are.

Do you not... talk, to your neighbors?

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#49

Post by mantas »

chaps wrote: post #39
mantas wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already a model for this. Crowd-sourced journalists via Patreon etc. Even in my small country (~3mio pop), people manage to make a cushy living on this. E.g. covering iffy cases of corruption and neglect that ain't reported much (if at all) on mainstream media. In many cases because media if afraid to loose advertisement money from related business structures.

Hah! No way would that work in any industry-changing way. Maybe some journalists here and there make that work, but it's not a model that scales to many, and it would be unbalanced in a way that promotes the already promoted while leaving those just starting out to traditional freelancing of 200 (maybe) per-piece until they build enough reputation to get patreon followers. In other words -- the same system we have no…

Yes and no. It certainly won't employ the army of want-to-be-a-journalist. But is that a problem if too many people want to work a fancy job and community cannot employ as many? Many people want to be cosmonauts, but we have few seats. Is that an industry problem? Probably not...

However, it can fix the trust issue in journalism industry. Once community is paying journalist wages rather than advertisers, quality should go up.

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#50

Post by caslon »

ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #45
caslon wrote: post #11

Does this seem suspect to anyone else? It's hard to believe an author trying to instill in you the idea that everything is fine, actually, when stuff is pretty obviously not actually fine. My neighbors are not well off. I am not well off. The people I know are mostly below or hovering around the federal poverty guideline. Far from making great sums, and it's been this way for a long time. Are we sure the author isn't…

Back in 2019 when this was written, the US was economically doing well. Unemployment was at a 15-year minimum (1), net compensation was increasing for the middle/lower classes at the fastest rate in 20 years (2), and productivity was up. The economic crash started in Jan/Feb 2020 upon Covid worries, and then just kept on going with supply and demand shocks. (1) https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-…

None of what you're saying implies things were good in 2019, though. It just implies things were getting better compared to the last two crashes we'd had, in theory, for some people.

I think people have a right to feel angry, and I don't think the pandemic is the thing that caused it.

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